PORTO ALEGRE,
Brazil, Jan 29 (IPS) - Civil society has a pending debt: an in-depth debate
about communication, agree specialists in the sector participating in
the World Social Forum, underway in this southern Brazilian city.

Regina Festa,
a Brazilian professor at the school of communications at Sao Paulo University,
expressed her surprise at the ''absence of discussion on the power of
communication'' during the six-day Forum.

Festa, speaking
at the conference that ends Tuesday, said it is ''very serious'' that
civil society does not perceive the need to regulate the communications
media, and stressed the difficulty in developing alternative proposals
to the current media superpowers.

Many of the
world's media moguls can be found at the World Economic Forum, an event
running concurrently in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos, where corporate
executives, financiers and government leaders are discussing globalisation
strategies.

The World Social
Forum, meanwhile, which has brought thousands of delegates from 123 countries
to Brazil, is a gathering of primarily left-leaning academics and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), and is serving as a counterbalance to the meeting
in Davos.

US communications
analyst Norman Salomon agreed with the Brazilian professor that there
are a limited number of initiatives to fight the internationalisation
of values driven by big media.

''When they
ask me about concrete routes toward building powerful tools of alternative
communication, I say we need divine intervention,'' the expert said.

For Salomon,
the key lies in achieving ''the freedom to be heard'' and that to do so
means breaking down the current logic behind the communications media.

Aruna Roy,
of India, recipient of the ''Magasausay'' award for actions benefiting
information for rural groups, stated that when civil society's activities
are covered by the media, ''they are no longer marginal.''

Festa pointed
out that, ''according to current standards,'' that which is not found
in the media ''does not exist.''

The communication
specialists agreed at the Porto Alegre conference on the diagnosis of
the relation between the mass media and civil society, criticising the
lack of space, the information vacuum, created around social matters by
today's major media.

They increasingly
cover issues related to trade, entertainment and consumption, said Festa,
while they bury news about important matters and people from poorer regions.

Brazilian sociologist
Emir Sader stated that ''there is no democracy without truly open spaces
for communication, (which means) we can say that there is currently no
true democracy anywhere in the world.''

Sader asserted
that today the world is experiencing the hegemony of the US-based media,
''which condition and serve as a model for the world.''

The president
of the IPS Executive Board, Roberto Savio, of Italy, stressed that 39
percent of the world's communications media are concentrated in the United
States, and 44 percent of all television signals originate in that country.

Savio characterised
communication as ''indispensable'' for overseeing the globalisation process.

In that sense,
Roy indicated that the right to know is directly related to the right
to live, pointing to the campaigns in India for access to public documents,
because ''without information there is no control over our governments.''

Salomon, in
another intervention in the discussion, insisted that the commercial side
of communications creates dependence in editorial decision-making, and
cautioned that the leading advertising agencies are already globalising.

That vision
was seconded by Brazilian cartoonist Ziraldo, author of numerous children's
books, who criticised the subjugation of the communications media to ''the
economic dictatorship of advertising.''

Ziraldo also
denounced the impact of the media on the public, ''which is less and less
accustomed to reading and reflecting.''

Meanwhile,
Timothy Ney, representing the US-based Free Software Foundation, affirmed
that it is necessary ''to tear down the digital walls'' in order to improve
conditions for mass access to the Internet.

Various studies
indicate that some 150 million people in the United States have Internet
access, as do 100 million Europeans, and nearly 100 million people in
the Asia-Pacific region. But just 13 million Latin Americans, three million
Africans and less than two million residents of the Middle East enjoy
such access.

Salomon asserts
that the problem of building democracy cannot be resolved by the Internet,
though Festa believes that the worldwide network permits a deepening of
pluralistic attitudes.

Savio reminded
the participants that even though the question of the Internet triggers
a great deal of controversy, it was the use of this powerful tool ''that
made the rapid organisation of this World Social Forum possible, with
broad and diverse participation.'' (END/IPS/tra-so/ml/dm/ld/01)

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